Rivkind

Perry Rivkind, district director for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service in Miami, is accustomed to being in the hot seat, his job to decidewhich refugees who come to Florida are allowed to stay and which get sent home.Rivkind, 57, has so impressed the state's Republican leadership that they've asked him to challenge either of two Democratic stalwarts in 1988. The Republicans have offered him financial backing and political organization to run against U.S. Rep. Claude Pepper, D-Miami, or Sen. Lawton Chiles.

Floridians should find out today whether they will vote in primary elections on Tuesday or go to the polls later with storm-ravaged Dade County.On Saturday, Dade Chief Judge Leonard Rivkind ordered Dade's balloting postponed until Sept. 8. He also ordered that vote totals be withheld for multi-county races that involve Dade, where the elections supervisor said 102 precincts were ruined.The ruling is being appealed to the Florida Supreme Court in two ways: by a Dade judicial candidate who wants the election delayed statewide, and by the state Attorney General's Office, which says withholding part of the results for a week is illegal.

The Miami office of the Immigration and Naturalization Service closed Thursday afternoon for a party, halting all INS business while government workers danced and drank beer.The news of the shutdown stunned the INS in Washington.''I don't believe it. We don't close federal offices for a party,'' said Duke Austin, an INS spokesman. ''To say an office is closed because they're having a party is not acceptable.''The party was a farewell celebration for Perry Rivkind, who will step down as Florida district director Monday.

By Peter Mitchell And John C. Van Gieson of The Sentinel Staff, August 30, 1992

Citing ''exceptional circumstances'' caused by Hurricane Andrew, circuit Judge Leonard Rivkind on Saturday postponed Tuesday's elections until Sept. 8 in Dade County.State officials appealed the decision, sending election plans into a tailspin.The state does not object to the delay but rather to Rivkind's order to seal the results in the U.S. Senate primary election, and voting in four other districts involving Dade County, until the county casts its ballots.''We can't just appeal part of the ruling; we have to appeal the whole thing,'' said Don Pride, a spokesman for the governor's office, which took part in discussing the appeal.

When Perry Rivkind, the hot-tempered, sharp-tongued, motorcycle-riding former vice cop, walks out of Miami's immigration office for the last time next week, he will leave behind a new definition of bureaucrat.By most accounts the retiring chief of the Immigration and Naturalization Service in Florida broke the bureaucratic mold of faceless, paper-shuffling automatons. Instead he was a wisecracking rebel who bucked his bosses, befriended enemies and wielded considerable discretion with compassion.

Federal immigration agents are looking for a Bethune-Cookman College professor and his family to serve them with a warrant that would order them deported to India.Officials with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service in Miami said Friday that Pandurang Shambhag, his wife, Rukma, and their children, Vinayak and Preeti, have gone into hiding to keep from being served with the warrant.''According to my staff, he's hiding,'' district Director Perry Rivkind said Friday. ''They went to his home and couldn't find him. Bethune-Cookman won't or can't tell us where he is.''Rivkind and deputy director Dwayne Peterson said the INS is trying to deport the Shambhags because they are in the United States illegally.

A Romanian tennis player, seeking the ''freedom to do what she wants,'' was granted political asylum Tuesday after defecting a day earlier, immigration officials said.''I'm delighted to be in the United States,'' Madalina Voinea, one of Romania's top-ranked woman players, said through an interpreter. ''I hope for nothing but the best.''The teen-ager had proved a ''well-founded fear of persecution'' -- a prerequisite for obtaining political asylum, said Perry Rivkind, U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service regional director.

The tugboat Liberty on Wednesday rescued five Cuban refugees drifting 40 miles northeast of Key West on a raft of inner tubes.It was the fourth group of Cubans on ragtag rafts to reach Florida in the last three months.The five young men told an immigration inspector they left the town of Boca de Jaruco, near Havana, at 2 a.m. Sunday. They sailed a raft reinforced with two-by-fours.During their 3 1/2-day voyage, their only supplies were a large box of crackers and 14 gallons of water, they said.

An illegal Haitian alien convicted of cocaine trafficking is asking that he be allowed to stay in the United States on humanitarian grounds because he has AIDS and has no one to take care of him in his homeland.Joseph Renior, 29, is being held in isolation at the Immigration and Naturalization Service's Krome Avenue detention center south of Miami.Renior entered the United States illegally in 1979 and has been living in Belle Glade, said INS District Director Perry Rivkind. Immigration officials ordered him deported after he pleaded guilty to state charges of cocaine trafficking.

A record 32 Cuban refugees left homes in Spain for the United States last month. But unlike their counterparts who fled Castro's dictatorship on boats and homemade rafts, they were denied asylum in Miami.Going to Spain virtually eliminates their chance of quick entry into the United States, The Miami Herald reported Monday.Under U.S. law, Cubans who resettle in third countries -- especially a recognized democracy such as Spain -- drastically weaken their case for U.S. asylum, said Perry Rivkind, district director of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

The Miami office of the Immigration and Naturalization Service closed Thursday afternoon for a party, halting all INS business while government workers danced and drank beer.The news of the shutdown stunned the INS in Washington.''I don't believe it. We don't close federal offices for a party,'' said Duke Austin, an INS spokesman. ''To say an office is closed because they're having a party is not acceptable.''The party was a farewell celebration for Perry Rivkind, who will step down as Florida district director Monday.

When Perry Rivkind, the hot-tempered, sharp-tongued, motorcycle-riding former vice cop, walks out of Miami's immigration office for the last time next week, he will leave behind a new definition of bureaucrat.By most accounts the retiring chief of the Immigration and Naturalization Service in Florida broke the bureaucratic mold of faceless, paper-shuffling automatons. Instead he was a wisecracking rebel who bucked his bosses, befriended enemies and wielded considerable discretion with compassion.

Dense smoke from raging brush fires in the Everglades blanketed Dade and Broward counties Tuesday, closing a government building, forcing evacuation of a federal detention facility and causing misery for breathers everywhere.South Floridians who spent the day coping with watery eyes, a nauseating odor and murky visibility probably won't have complete relief before today when northeast winds are expected to blow the choking smoke away from populated areas.But, while shifting winds could mean good news for residents and visitors, they could spell trouble for Everglades National Park, whose officials joined firefighters in battling the blazes Tuesday.

A Romanian tennis player, seeking the ''freedom to do what she wants,'' was granted political asylum Tuesday after defecting a day earlier, immigration officials said.''I'm delighted to be in the United States,'' Madalina Voinea, one of Romania's top-ranked woman players, said through an interpreter. ''I hope for nothing but the best.''The teen-ager had proved a ''well-founded fear of persecution'' -- a prerequisite for obtaining political asylum, said Perry Rivkind, U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service regional director.

Perry Rivkind, district director for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service in Miami, is accustomed to being in the hot seat, his job to decidewhich refugees who come to Florida are allowed to stay and which get sent home.Rivkind, 57, has so impressed the state's Republican leadership that they've asked him to challenge either of two Democratic stalwarts in 1988. The Republicans have offered him financial backing and political organization to run against U.S. Rep. Claude Pepper, D-Miami, or Sen. Lawton Chiles.

A record 32 Cuban refugees left homes in Spain for the United States last month. But unlike their counterparts who fled Castro's dictatorship on boats and homemade rafts, they were denied asylum in Miami.Going to Spain virtually eliminates their chance of quick entry into the United States, The Miami Herald reported Monday.Under U.S. law, Cubans who resettle in third countries -- especially a recognized democracy such as Spain -- drastically weaken their case for U.S. asylum, said Perry Rivkind, district director of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

A Cuban refugee dying of bronchial pneumonia blinked once and became an American citizen, fulfilling a wish made when he discovered his terminal illness, officials said Saturday.Donaldo Horta, 33, in critical condition at Palm Springs General Hospital, asked for two things when he learned he was dying: his mother to be at his bedside and to become a U.S. citizen.His mother, Ysidra Fernandez, arrived from Cuba on a special humanitarian visa Wednesday, and his citizenship oath was administered in a ceremony in his hospital room at 4 p.m. Friday.

Floridians should find out today whether they will vote in primary elections on Tuesday or go to the polls later with storm-ravaged Dade County.On Saturday, Dade Chief Judge Leonard Rivkind ordered Dade's balloting postponed until Sept. 8. He also ordered that vote totals be withheld for multi-county races that involve Dade, where the elections supervisor said 102 precincts were ruined.The ruling is being appealed to the Florida Supreme Court in two ways: by a Dade judicial candidate who wants the election delayed statewide, and by the state Attorney General's Office, which says withholding part of the results for a week is illegal.

A Cuban refugee dying of bronchial pneumonia blinked once and became an American citizen, fulfilling a wish made when he discovered his terminal illness, officials said Saturday.Donaldo Horta, 33, in critical condition at Palm Springs General Hospital, asked for two things when he learned he was dying: his mother to be at his bedside and to become a U.S. citizen.His mother, Ysidra Fernandez, arrived from Cuba on a special humanitarian visa Wednesday, and his citizenship oath was administered in a ceremony in his hospital room at 4 p.m. Friday.

An illegal Haitian alien convicted of cocaine trafficking is asking that he be allowed to stay in the United States on humanitarian grounds because he has AIDS and has no one to take care of him in his homeland.Joseph Renior, 29, is being held in isolation at the Immigration and Naturalization Service's Krome Avenue detention center south of Miami.Renior entered the United States illegally in 1979 and has been living in Belle Glade, said INS District Director Perry Rivkind. Immigration officials ordered him deported after he pleaded guilty to state charges of cocaine trafficking.